SLOfit Lifelong is a public health initiative which was created to upgrade a well-established, national physical fitness surveillance system for Slovenian schoolchildren that has been collecting annual fitness and health data for over three decades. The ultimate objective of creating SLOfit Lifelong was to build a modern societal infrastructure with the capacity and ability to detect future causal associations between childhood physical fitness trends and future health outcomes based on the lifelong surveillance of one's own fitness status. By instilling citizens with an ambition to test, understand, and follow-up their own physical fitness and health status (including related health risk factors), this initiative provides the technical support and expert feedback needed to engender greater individual control over understanding (and thus modulating), one's own physical fitness status as they progress into older adulthood. This perspective paper details the extensive approach taken to devise appropriate fitness test batteries for adults and older adults which can also relate to the student version of the original SLOfit test database, including establishing criterion health risk zones and a public approach to establish this national, citizen-driven health feedback framework. Through its sophisticated online web applications, social media, print media, and outreach workshops, SLOfit Lifelong provides the expert support for public health engagement by fostering positive lifelong physical literacy experiences an individual can enjoy across their aging journey.
There is a growing body of literature reporting the health benefits of active commuting to school. This study investigated barriers and determinants of active commuting in children in Slovenia living within walking or cycling distance to school, i.e., 3 km. The sample consisted of 339 children (163 girls) aged 11–14 years who reported their mode of commuting, as well as their parents who described the socioeconomic environment of the family. Every third child in this study traveled to school exclusively by car/public transport, while every fifth participant used a passive means of transport when returning home from school. Potential household poverty, education of the mother and parental encouragement for physical activity were not associated with the commuting mode. In addition, conformist family barriers dominated among reasons for not choosing active commuting. A distance to school that was perceived to be too long was the most frequently cited barrier (72% of participants who passively commuted in both directions), followed by concern about being late for school (38% of participants who passively commute in one direction). Parents from all social strata who drive their children to school in either one or both directions while living in a walking or cycling range are a promising target population for active commuting interventions.
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